VP Academic Affairs Candidate Withdraws Nomination

Vice President Academic Affairs candidate Benjamin Brooks has withdrawn his nomination for the sabbatical position less than an hour after voting opened today at 2.30pm.

The candidate said: ‘I entered into the recent SUSU Sabbatical elections with a clear vision of how I would like to run my election campaign. It was really simple and very different from how I know the other candidates would be running their campaigns, I would run a low-key campaign driven by my policies and experience, without gimmick or palming people off with sound bites.

‘As the last couple of weeks have progressed it has become steadily clear to me that I could not win the election with the resources at my disposal, so I have today withdrawn my nomination to the position of VP Academic Affairs.

‘Almost the entire campaign team currently undertaking a short-course module with lectures running from 9-5 every day they have been unable to campaign on my behalf. Further more I would not ask any person to jeopardise their education on behalf of helping me apply for a job – that is after all what the SUSU elections are about.

‘This unfortunate and unavoidable state of affairs means that I have been attempting to campaign on my lonesome, which has proven to be both an isolating and nerve-wracking experience.’

Benjamin has thanked SUSU media departments for ‘keeping their elections coverage balanced and fair’, as well as the other three candidates running for the position and ‘being amicable opponents.’

He added, ‘I would also like to thank them for keeping to the spirit of the elections and running honest, fair campaigns. To those students who were considering voting for me now that elections are open, I’m sorry for forcing you to think again, and whilst it is not my place to inform your decision, I would say that the best thing you can do for the students’ union is to read through the manifestos of the remaining candidates with care before making your decision.’

Discussion5 Comments

Sad to hear Benjamin has pulled out. I hope all is well for him. Seemed like a good candidate who perhaps was hindered by the circumstances in which ultimately caters for louder brasher candidates.
Seems like a nice guy. All the best Benjamin in your subsequent endeavours.

Myself, Jon and Sami were all surprised and disheartened by Ben’s withdrawal, he did have some obviously strong ideas – I think every candidate has had that “I can’t do this” feeling at some point in the campaign as well so we can all relate.

Regardless of the outcome on Thursday night, Im pretty certain we will all meet up to go over ideas and share a unified direction – the 4 candidates for VPAA, if anything, has shown all the problems within the University and how they deliver courses; that has to change.

come on wessex scene sotontab published this article an hour before you. I thought you were supposed to be the professional ones.

JessMarch 2nd, 2011 at 11:20 am

Hey Elliot,

Yes the Wessex Scene actually learnt of the news before any other news publications, however we waited until we had spoken to Banjamin before we reported the story as we wanted to be professional in the accuracy of the information and Ben’s reasons. We actually published these reasons before any other website did (including Ben’s own personal blog), they just happened to beat us by first publishing their story with just Ben’s tweet, and then publsihing his reasons at a later time.

Maybe the timing of our reporting of breaking news is something that we may therefore need to look at, so thank you for your comments, but I think the Wessex Scene’s professionalism lies in the accuracy and fairness of our reporting, and not neccessarily always other things such as timing. But like I said, this may mean this should be something we should be looking at, so thank you for your feedback.

READ THE MAGAZINE

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

About

The Wessex Scene is the oldest student news provider at the University of Southampton, and has been in print since 1936. The Scene is written and edited by students, for students, and is always looking to welcome new writers, photographers, designers, researchers and illustrators.